Murphy's Law Meets RSS

Last week I attempted to have a session in which I taught teachers about what RSS is and then helped them make their own, personalized readers through www.netvibes.com. It did not work out as I had intended. Here is the I wrote to my staff as a follow-up. The attached pdf referenced in the email can be accessed at http://www.drop.io/JennieDocs.

Email to staff:

I wanted to thank my sessions’ participants for attending and for your patience as www.netvibes.com refused to cooperate with me. It was Murphy’s Law at its best (or is it worst) – the site was down for maintenance and was back up by 5 pm that night. I will work on a video tutorial on netvibes this weekend, so there will be a follow-up for those who attended (and even those who didn’t).

In the first session, when the website wasn’t loading, someone had the comment that this is often what teachers go through – lots of planning around something on a website and just when you go to use it, it’s down. I agree, it can be frustrating and whenever possible, I try to have a back-up plan. So in the spirit of trying to turn yesterday’s problem into today’s teachable moment, I wanted to share with you a strategy I use for downloading videos off the web. The attached pdf (downloadyoutubevideos.pdf) gives step-by-step instructions with screenshots for how to download videos off of YouTube.

The benefits of downloading are:
1) Once you’ve downloaded a video, you don’t have to worry about whether the internet is down. The video is on your computer and available for viewing any time, anywhere.
2) You don’t have to sit and wait for the video to load during the lesson, which depending on the length of the video and internet traffic can be a very long time.
3) Sometimes a perfectly appropriate video has inappropriate comments underneath it in YouTube.

Wiimote and Interactive Whiteboards

My longest lasting struggle as technology coordinator this year has been to get interactive whiteboard technology to my school. I used a Smartboard (paired with an ELMO document camera) when I taught middle school mathematics. I found the Smartboard technology had a relatively steep learning curve but once I got used to it, I really couldn't imagine returning to teaching math without the same set-up.

When reviewing the budget requests for the 2008-09 school year, the number of requests from my elementary school teachers brought on mixed feelings. On one hand it is extremely exciting to have so many teachers interested in learning about a technology, on the other hand, I was worried about the cost benefit ratio to this particular technology. We have piloted a few eBeam IWBs with limited success this year, which was due in part to not having the full interactive package shipped at the beginning of the year.

I was downloading some TED videos today and came across a recently posted talk in which Johnny Lee demonstrated rigging a Nintendo Wii remote to create a cheap interactive whiteboard. With $40 for the Wii remote and perhaps $10 for the pen parts, that's $50 for interactivity. Compare that to $2,000 for a Smartboard or Activboard (don't even mention the $5,000 to get one IWB shipped from Bangkok, the closest dealer). Granted, Smartboard and Activboard come with packaged software and other possible benefits.

I'll be bringing this conversation to my school's technology committee and perhaps student council and will be interested to see where it goes.

Here are some links to useful things I've come across when researching:

1. A YouTube video of Johnny Lee demonstrating how to set up the Wiimote Interactive whiteboard
2. A YouTube video of a teacher comparing a Wiimote IWB to commercial IWBs
3. A How-To on building the pen and setting up the board
4. A How-To on connecting the Wii remote to you computer via Bluetooth
5. Johnny Lee's webpage with instructions and source code (only for Windows so far) for the whiteboard
   

Trying to Go 2.0

Ever since I attended Jeff Utecht's sessions at EARCOS, I've been trying to play catch up on the Web 2.0 tools that I learned about. I've bought a domain name ad am just waiting for the summer so I can learn RapidWeaver and make a homepage. Why RapidWeaver? There are heaps of other web design tools out there, but I'm a sucker for apps made exclusively for Mac.

So in the few weeks since EARCOS, I've been using my netvibes page to keep up on some Ed Tech related blogs, which has been going really well. I have an upcoming pd session next week in which I'll introduce fellow teacher to RSS feeds, which I'm really excited about.

The thing I've found frustrating since EARCOS is Internet in Cambodia. It often takes 10x the actual length of a video to load it on YouTube or TeacherTube. I've tried a work-around of downloading without previewing through Zamzar. I leave my computer downloading heaps of videos overnight and watch the videos the net morning over breakfast. The catch is that about half are corrupted. The upside - videos like "Think Before You Post" and "Are You Listening" are powerful hooks for pds with staff or discussions with students.

Another source of frustration is the TED talks. It takes hours to download the file for a 20-minute talk. Some of the videos are so thought-provoking and inspiring, but again I'm working with a 50% corruption rate. I wish I could get a dvd of all the talks.

Despite these frustrations, though, I'm still committed. I'm starting a list of all the videos I'm going to download this summer when I'm visiting the US and have faster, more reliable Internet.

I recognize that the title of this post is Trying to Go 2.0 and that most of the things I've discussed are arguably not technically Web 2.0 tools. The point, though, is that in the face of Internet-related frustration, I struggle with whether, as technology coordinator of my school, it would be responsible for me to teach teachers about the valuable and powerful Web 2.0 technologies available. Would introducing blogs, wikis, streaming video, and other 2.0 tools be a help or a source of frustration to most newcomers?

My inclination is to hold off a little bit longer and to do a field test with my own students using wikis and blogs before doing any pd with my staff. I'll continue to attempt to download videos and share them with my staff. With the Internet still slow and spotty, I think this is the best balance I can find between going 2.0 and avoiding a staff of frustrated teachers.

Supporting Teachers with ScreenSteps

One of the challenges for a person who “gets” technology is to understand how to teach those who don’t. We all have the technophobes and techno-reluctant on our staff. When you start explaining to them how to do something on their computer, their eyes gloss over as they consider whether to go to Bangkok or Sihanoukville for the upcoming 3-day weekend. Who can blame them. It’s human nature. Even for someone like me who loves technology and everything it has to offer, it can be tempting to put my fist through my macbook screen when I’m late for a meeting and I’ve got to download that one last document and my pinwheel is stuck in an infinite spin.

That’s why I felt a weight lifted off of my shoulders when I learned about the ScreenSteps software from Blue Mango Learning Systems. I mean, it’s just plain hot. I’ve labored over “How To” lessons for students and teachers this year and finally decided that for the time it took me to create one document, I could have planned my next unit and marked a class set of design workbooks. With this software, I’ve already cranked out three lessons in thirty minutes.


Here’s some of the things I like about it:

1) Cross platform. This is a super bonus because my school is cross platform and there are teachers and students who shy away from our MacBooks because they don’t know the operating system. ScreenSteps is going to help me help them see the light.
2) Exportable to html or the ScreenSteps Live website. Students, teachers, and the world (eek! I’m getting global) can access the lessons from anywhere.
3) Exportable to pdf. Because the internet in Cambodia can be a little slow at times, being able to export to pdf will enable me to put a copy on our school server.

Another fabulous thing about this software is the two-part video tutorial from ScreenCastsOnline that covers just about everything you need to get started. And, if you purchase ScreenSteps before May 1, 2008, you get a 25% discount. I, for one, am sold!

Brain Explosion - EARCOS 2008

I'm here at EARCOS and I think my brain is going to explode with all of the things that has been jammed into it in the past 72 hours. These 90 minute sessions are such a tease. They just plant the seed - during the sessions I find myself furiously typing up notes to self - websites to visit when the session's over, rss feeds to add to my netvibes page, nuggets of knowledge I need to bring back to my staff. Each 90 minute session requires at least 4 hours of follow up (not to mention a few coffees, reliable internet, and access to a power source that fits an American plug) to even begin to scratch the surface of this wide, wide web. It's completely overwhelming and exhilarating.

So I already need to call myself out on fronting - netvibes. I just made my page yesterday. I can tell it's going to revolutionize the way I interact with the internet. Can anyone remember doing web searches in altavista? Or listening to music on a walkman? RSS readers (like netvibes or Google reader) will change my daily interaction with the internet so drastically that the memory of blindly googling a topic will elicit nostalgic and slightly amused feelings a la memories of altavista and walkmen.

Top Tech Things I've Learned About (In No Particular Order)
I really feel like my brain is going to burst so I need to offload some of these thoughts into the blog to make space:

1. www.netvibes.com - My RSS reader and new best friend.
   
2. www.zamzar.com - Download any video (YouTube, for example) as any standard movie format. Clutch for teachers dealing with limited bandwidth or spotty internet (i.e. teachers in Cambodia).
3. Google Earth - I was aware of this but hadn't thought about its potential as a teaching tool.
4. www.thethinkingstick.com - I'm going to subscribe to all blogs associated with Jeff Utecht until I'm old and gray.
5. mnemograph.com - Very cool web app for making interactive timelines.

I'll share more links as I get a chance to check them out.

Teaching a New Subject

I am a computer technology teacher at an international school. Just one semester into the school year, I am amazed by what I have learned in such a short time. I attended a science and technology high school which was deemed the best public high school in the United States by US News and World Report. This is not to ring my bell; rather, it is to highlight the fact that my high school was (and is) cutting edge. When I went to high school (10 years ago), I learned how to create webpages in a text editor in html. There was no wysiwyg applications, digital video or photography, youtube, or web 2.0, to name a few. Almost all of these things I have have learned this year. Not to their fullest extent. Often just before my students. Or, learned from the students.

One thing I have never underestimated in teaching and learning is the power of reflection. I am starting this blog for just that reason - for me to reflect on my teaching, to document the teaching tools (or just plain neat gadgets) that I come across in my research, and perhaps, at some stage, as a place that other educators might come to share ideas.

But, for now, this is just a record of my journey in teaching a new subject that is constantly changing, moving, morphing, evolving, and sprouting strange tentacles.